In the 7 years since I began Mushroom Printing, I’ve watched blogging evolve.
As blogging became well-known, there have been plenty of good changes; online friendships and online communities were formed among people who’d had little experience with The Internet, the unique opportunity for self-publishing has launched careers and the popularity of microblogs like The Twitter and The Tumblr soared.
There are, of course, plenty of downsides, too. Companies began to take note of these “blogs” and started their “The Word Of Mom” advertising campaigns, sending out freebies (rather than the actual dollars they’d pay a marketing firm) to bloggers in exchange for a review. Personal blogs began to feel a bit less, well, personal. The blogging community became a saturated market and it was hard for new bloggers to get their names out there.
What hasn’t changed is that I still love blogging. If I had an “I (HEART) BLOGGING*” shirt, I’d wear it, because that’s how much I love being a blogger. I also (HEART) all the “I (HEART) XXX” shirts. Writing here on Mommy Wants Vodka, being Your Aunt Becky, has been a constant in my life. I’ve pecked out over a thousand posts since I began my illustrious blogging “career.” Some good, some great, and a hell of a lot more mediocre.
In that time, I’ve pulled down exactly two posts. The first post was a Go Ask Aunt Becky question about a child recently diagnosed with autism. The post I’d written; the way I’d written it; it fueled a comment war that was more scary and hurtful than helpful to the person who had reached out for help. That was unfair to her.
Astute Pranksters may note that I pulled down the post I’d written yesterday. Not because it was bullshit, or because I hated it, or because I didn’t feel as though I could share it. I’d written my experiences as they happened to me while I paid tribute my cousin. I wanted to explain that those small acts of kindness can stick with you forever.
In the process of giving the back story; the reasons those kindnesses resonated so much, I upset a family member. The damage is probably irrevocable.
When I write, I write with an audience in mind, knowing anyone can read my words. For every post I do write, there are ten others that remain unwritten. I keep my written words and experiences as honest and true as I am able without hurting others. Sometimes, I gloss over bits especially when they make someone else look bad, sometimes I don’t.
Well before I pulled this post, I’d started writing for my friend’s site, which led me to think of all of the words I’ve never written. All of the words I’d wanted to string together but for one reason or another, didn’t. Sometimes, those words remained unwritten because they cut too close to home; because sometimes words, feelings, pain, reactions cannot be explained away by logic. The kind of criticism it would open up would pour salt into an already-festering wound. Others remained unwritten because I didn’t want to cause drama or pain.
Being told that my about my feelings; my experiences, written as I’d felt them as a child, were mostly fiction, I pulled the post; ashamed. I felt cowardly. I feel cowardly. Admitting all of those words; those feelings, to you took a lot for me. Living in denial as I did for many years, well, that is much harder.
I can’t give you a *fistpump* and tell you “I did the right thing” by pulling the post, nor can I say that “I did the wrong thing” by writing it.
There are so many nebulous areas in life, the kind that don’t have clear answers, no villain or victim; and all of my unwritten words, I realized, fall into that realm. Sometimes things just are.
I’m so sorry that my relationship, one I’ve desperately wanted for as long as I can remember, will (likely) forever be altered by those 700 carefully chosen words. They weren’t written in anger, never intended to hurt or accuse. I string words together as I remember them. As I experienced them.
And if that’s going too far, well, so fucking be it.
*Hm, I’d prefer an “I (HEART) PRANKSTERS” shirt, now that I think of it.
On my recent excursion to The Target to pick up my McDonald’s Headset to finally go “hands free,” I realized that I was also in dire need of an additional filing system.
(pithy aside, my brand new house phone, the only one I’m able to use in my HOUSE, is Blue Douche enabled. Which means that I can talk on the EAR PENIS but not my McDonald’s Headset. This seems like a steaming pile of bullshit, or at least, a conspiracy)
One of the many things I miss about school is purchasing school supplies. Buying them for my children isn’t nearly as full of the awesome, because, well, obviously. Their lists always require things so specific that I drive all over town in an endless pursuit of a twelve ring, three binder, red, plastic-covered notebook, wide-ruled, until I give up, convinced it’s a typo. Then I see the OTHER parents have managed to find said item and wonder what I’m doing wrong.
I digress.
Getting my corp. taxes done reminded me that my filing system of “throwing things into envelopes” was probably not going to cut it, especially if I wanted to go all official Non-Profit-ish for Band Back Together, so I eagerly went to see what else existed to make my life, well, BETTER.
It was like the heavens opened up and shone down upon me. There couldn’t have been a better day for it. I’d just gone to the Anxiety Doctor for a medication recheck, gone to the Tax Man, and was staring down the Pharmacist From Hell.
But there it was: A SALE on OFFICE SUPPLIES.
*cue choirs of angels*
I grabbed three or twelve-fifty-niner of those weird folding file folder thingies, a sassy three-ring binder – practically a Trapper-Keeper – and folders for it, a new notebook, a bigger day planner than the one I currently use, a white board for Daver and an address book. You know, the ones you use your hand to physically write a name and number next to? Oh yes. I’m proudly regressing.
I’ve somehow been placed in charge of all the stuff coming into and going out of the house. It’s amusing to anyone who knows me and annoying to me, who knows me.
When we prepared for the Great Move of Aught Six from Oak (no) Park (ing)* I in charge of sorting, organizing and packing up our condo. Daver can’t get rid of anything. He’s descended from a Pack Rat, but he’s not one himself, no, he’s merely incapable of sorting out what can stay and what should go.
So he saves it all and overlooks the glaring piles of crap.
When I was packing/sorting/cleaning the condo, I came across a receipt. Curious, I picked it up and looked at it.
Pranksters, it was three years old. Figuring that anything saved for that length of time must’ve been something good, I glanced down at it. Four items: a plastic garbage can, beef jerky, Fritos and…wait for it, wait for it….
…..
…..
…..
kitty litter.
Thank the Sweet Lord of Butter that he’d saved a copy of THAT! Otherwise, I’d never have known exactly what he was buying at 1:42 PM on October 22, 2003.
What was most baffling and/or frightening was that this receipt had also managed to move to three separate apartments.
While Daver was raised by someone who is physically incapable of throwing anything away, my father recently got a label-maker for Christmas. I swear to you, eyes wide with glee, he tore into that label-maker like it was a brand-new laptop. Before the day was through, I was wearing a “Stumpy**” label, Daver had a “The Daver” label, the kids each were wearing their names, and he was upstairs happily labeling everything in his extensive file cabinet.
He takes Organization Very Seriously.
He also takes Getting Rid of Shit Very Seriously.
If he’s found something that is very clearly mine, he will happily march it out to my car the very moment I arrive, lest I forget it. Or swing it by my house. In the odd event that I do not claim it in his arbitrary time-line, he donates it to charity.
Stuff = Bullshit.
Organization = Not Bullshit.
The man has it right.
I do not happen to personally enjoy labeling things, because I have a feeling if I started, I’d probably never stop. I’d be up all night, every night, labeling individual cans of diet Coke “DRINK ME,” just because.
What, ME COMPULSIVE? Why, I never!
Also, make all the Abacus Jokes you want, but I have NO CLUE how to use the damn thing.
Also, Also: new shirt idea.
This?
Or maybe this?
Or maybe something else. I dunno. Need a new idear (because my shirts aren’t Zazzle and are awesomely eco-friendly, organic, possibly made from recycled banana leaves) and screen-printed, I pay upfront, which is why I ask you guys about this stuff. You’re my brain, Pranksters. MY BRAIN.
EVEN THOUGH ME AND MY ABACUS ARE ORGANIZED.
*inside joke for anyone knows Oak Park. Parking is BEYOND bullshit in Oak Park.
**My brother nicknamed me “Stumpy.” Because I was shorter than him. I’m not exactly short: 5 foot 5 inches tall; not like 3 feet tall.
I have many irrational fears. I suppose you could just say, “I’m irrational,” but since this is my website, I’m going to tag on the part about fears and pretend that lalalalalaa I’m totally, completely, entirely, 110% sane.
Shut up.
I’m deathly afraid of earwigs. My earwig phobia can handily be traced back to the time when, many years back, when Young Aunt Becky actually drank a live earwig that had been evilly lurking inside a Diet Coke can. That’s the stuff nightmares are made of.
I’m also afraid of fish, the color orange and anything sung by Rush.
But the one that is most impactful is my fear of Garage Sales.
I like a good bargain like I like Orange-flavored Hostess Cupcakes (read: love) and I love weird, eclectic things and Garage Sales are notorious havens of such finds. Why once, I got a Plexiglas Goat’s Head for a penny! If that’s not a win, I don’t know what is.
I also love to purge my house of excess crap. I don’t like…well, I don’t like stuff. With five people under one roof, you can imagine how quickly stuff accumulates. I’m not a hoarder and having a bunch of stuff around makes me anxious(er) and twitchy(er) so every couple of months, I go through the house and remove everything we don’t need. When I’m done, I feel like I’m on top of the world. I’m all Leonardo DiCaprio King of the World, Bitches! I’m high on freaking LIFE. Stuff, BE GONE!
So the stuff is out of our closets and moved to a second location: my garage. That’s all well and good until I realize (as I have today) that I must now move it somewhere…else.
The obvious solution (and what I normally do) would be to donate it to the Salvation Army. There’s a drop-site within a mile from my house and I can load up a couple of bags and easily drop them off.
But there’s always that niggling voice in the back of my head that suggests that maybe, just maybe, I could have a Garage Sale! Maybe someone would actually WANT some of my stuff! Like all of my old Williams-Sonoma Cookbooks that I never used because, let’s face it, BUYING cookbooks doesn’t mean you suddenly BECOME a cook!
(who knew?)
Maybe someone would give me a dollar for one of those cookbooks! Or what about all of my hardly-worn Calvin Klein pants that I outgrew? (ungrew? I don’t know. I lost weight and now they don’t fit) Or those toys the kids never played with? SOMEONE MIGHT WANT AN AWESOME TOY FOR THEIR KIDS.
This is what the voice in my head says. For a brief moment in time, I listen. My eyes glaze over, and I think that it might be nice to make a couple of bucks. Hey, I could buy my laptop and start planning my Epic Road Trip to visit the Pranksters! The wheels in my head begin to turn. Slowly. Creakily.
Then, Cold Hard Reality bitch-slaps me across the face.
I think of the people who will haggle with me over a coffee cup I’ve reasonably priced at a whopping ten cents. I hate to haggle more than I hate anything. In fact, I’d rather give it away than have to haggle with Garage Sale People.
So I’m left back at Square One. A Garage full of Sale-able stuff that I guess I’ll just donate to charity. Unless you Pranksters have a better idea.
I hope that whomever ends up with that Williams-Sonoma Cookbook set knows what the hell “creme fraiche” is. Because I sure as hell don’t.
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Do you have any better ideas, Pranksters?
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